


Gratitude

by mebfeath



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: AU, Angst, But with a happy ending, F/M, Queen Victoria's Children - Freeform, and because we all want a happy ending, because we all know Lord Melbourne spends so much time in his own head, character-driven introspection, history be damned, it doesn't even need to be said anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 06:45:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10758894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mebfeath/pseuds/mebfeath
Summary: He was grateful. So, so grateful for these little things. After everything, the little he deserved, the way he’d squandered his youth, he was grateful for these precious moments with the children of the woman he loved. His opportunity to mean something again, to matter. To make a difference in the country – the empire – he had devoted perhaps too much of his life serving.





	Gratitude

The sun was bright and the sky clear – it was a beautiful day. As such, Lord Melbourne was not surprised when he was directed to the gardens of Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen, instead of her usual study. 

He stopped just outside the door to survey the scene, and smiled. The Queen was down near the one of the flowerbeds with her daughter, and the two young princes were running circles around the flower beds, each with a ball not too far in front of them. 

He could interrupt them…or he could just sit, and watch. It wasn’t a decision really, he thought, as he walked the few steps down to the stone seats under one of the trees. The laughter of the two princes drifted up to where he sat. 

He was grateful for these little moments of simple beauty in his life. Bright moments in a life of few tremendous highs and so many soul-destroying lows. 

He’d had his chances in his youth, he knew, and, in his youth, he’d squandered them. His wife, his little boy, both taken from him. The pain of his youth contrasted sharply with the little joys of his middle-age, and appreciate those joys he would. He despised the person who had said that in order to appreciate the good, one had to appreciate the bad, but only because he knew the truth of that statement in the depths of his soul. He would never hear his little boy laugh again, but he could delight in the laughter of the two young princes.

He chuckled as Edward, in his youthful exuberance, kicked his ball into a bed of freshly-pruned roses – and stopped. Both boys stood at the edge of the flower bed, looking at the wayward ball that had managed to land in the middle of the flower bed. He could see the indecision, their hesitation as they conversed; do they risk the wrath of their mother and governess over torn and ripped clothing and attempt to collect the ball, or do they wait what would surely be an age in a young boy’s mind for the gardener?

Melbourne knew exactly which one they would choose; he’d spent more than enough time with these two – and their mother – to know exactly how that conversation was going. 

Edward had his mother's playful and tenacious nature. The younger Arthur wasn’t quite as spirited as his older brother – he’d inherited his mother’s eyes but his father’s penchant for moodiness and solitude, especially when things didn’t go his way. Melbourne would occasionally arrive find a head of unruly brown curls poking out from behind his mother’s desk, the little boy reading a book whilst the Queen worked. Brown curls like his father, he thinks, and he bites down on the uncharitable thought that follows. 

Instead he smiles to himself as he watches the boys scout the flowerbed, all the while throwing looks over their shoulders to their mother who currently had her back to her boys. Eventually, after much pointing and arguing, he sees Arthur take off his jacket and start to squeeze between two of the smaller, more harshly pruned bushes. 

He finds himself holding his breath along with the young boy, watching as he slowly snakes his way around and over the sharp thorns, and laughing as he reaches the ball and holds it up in the air triumphantly, before throwing it to Edward and slowly working his way back out.

But not, unfortunately, before his mother observed just what he’d been doing. Melbourne let out a quiet chuckle as the boys froze at the sound of their mother’s admonishment before Arthur continued his perilous journey out of the rose bed. 

It was the first sunny day they'd had all week and all four of them were taking advantage of the clear sky and what little warmth the mid-March sun provided. It had been a bitterly cold winter and, fearing the illnesses the cold brings, the Queen had taken the advice of their governess and banned them from playing outside almost entirely. 

But, as Melbourne had warned the Queen, you couldn’t keep two young boys and their devoted baby sister cooped up inside for two months without shenanigans of _some_ kind. 

It had taken everything he had not to laugh when the Queen had scolded them for hiding from their governess for a solid hour. Their solemn faces as they’d been frog-marched into the room where she’d been approving plans for the cessation of transportation to Australia had been priceless; he remarked to the Queen later that their topic of conversation had been quite apt, as the young princes and princess looked as though it was to have been their fate.

She’d sighed before turning to him, her eyes twinkling; she would have to ask the boys their hiding place. Perhaps she’d make use of it, she’d said.

And when he'd been invited to play hide and seek with little Alice, well, how could he resist those big, blue eyes? God knows he'd fallen in love with her mother's. He hadn't yet learnt to say no to them yet either, despite all his best efforts. 

So she'd taken his big hand in her tiny one and led him away to hide behind one of the larger chairs in the Library. He’d wondered fleetingly how long it would take the Queen to notice his absence. Given that she’d summoned him for a state dinner that was due to start any moment, he doubted it would be long.

But he didn't think she'd be _too_ angry when he explained the reason for his delay. 

He wasn’t overly displeased when Edward had found them with a shout of glee only a few minutes later, and had given the little princess a kiss on the hand and asked to be excused to dine with the Queen. She’d sighed – oh, and how that sigh had reminded him of early days in the palace tutoring a young Queen who had slowly begun to realise she couldn’t always have her way – and had graciously allowed him to leave. He’d all but run to the receiving room.

He’d been right; the Queen had just smiled and shaken her head at him. 

He wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve this, this second chance he’d been given. This renewed purpose. The Queen said she needed him from time to time, and serve her he would, with all his heart. All he knew was that he was not going to squander what little time he had left with her.

No one would call him ungrateful.

Or when young Edward and Arthur had sat raptured by the Duke of Wellington’s detailed and really quite theatrical – who knew? – recount of the battles he’d fought and won, and how he’d saved the British empire from the clutches of Napoleon; their wide eyes as he had described the terror of the guns and the horses, the bloody swords and bayonets, the screams and cries of battle. When he’d spoken of the fear in the decision-making, being responsible for the lives of so many, Melbourne had been moved by the aging Duke’s care for the young princes and the positions they would hold. 

He’d squirmed a little in his chair when the Duke had quietly advised the boys that Melbourne had sacrificed more and won far greater than the Duke ever had in his lifetime.

It was these moments he'd cherish till his dying day. 

He was grateful. So, so grateful for these little things. After everything, the little he deserved, the way he’d squandered his youth, he was grateful for these precious moments with the children of the woman he loved. His opportunity to mean something again, to matter. To make a difference in the country – the empire – he had devoted perhaps too much of his life serving.

He’s drawn back to the present by the sight of the Queen walking across the grass towards him. She’s smiling at him and he can’t help but smile back as he stands to greet her.

‘Lord Melbourne,’ she says as she approaches, and this is the game they're playing, he thinks. ‘Do you think it undignified for a Queen to run and play with her children?’

He tilts his head to the side and purses his lips. ‘Some may claim it undignified for a Queen, ma'am,’ he declares, before looking at her. She twists her lips in amusement, and he continues, his voice now low and soft. ‘But for a mother, ma'am? It is perfect.’ He watches with a gleam in his eye and no small amount of satisfaction as she bites her lip before smiling, her eyes lowered.

She turns to watch the children running around the garden. ‘Then I think I prefer to be a mother today,’ she announces, and he huffs a laugh before moving to stand just behind to her.

‘And what a beautiful mother you make,’ he whispers quietly at her ear, before pressing a soft kiss to the sun-warmed skin of her bare shoulder. 

It thrills him that he can still make her blush after six years and three children. 

He watches as his daughter races up to them, flower in hand. She stops in front of him and he bends down to meet her, pulling her into his arms. 

‘Here, papa,’ she declares, thrusting a small yellow flower at him, and he smiles. His little girl was so thoughtful.

‘Thank you, my love,’ he says, placing a gentle kiss on her cheek. He gently slides the stem of the little flower into his buttonhole and she nods happily. 

‘Look!’ She turns to show him her hair, which had been pinned back and was now full of haphazardly-placed little yellow flowers – the same ones she’d picked for him. He reaches up and gently pushes one more securely into her curls.

‘Beautiful,’ he murmurs, before whispering quietly in her ear and smiling as she giggles and races away.

‘I’m beginning to think my daughter loves her father more than she loves her mother,’ Victoria declares, and Melbourne can’t help but smirk a little.

‘It’s not me she cries for when she’s ill,’ he counters after a moment, and she lets out a huff. 

‘And what a privilege that is,’ Victoria retorts, but Melbourne can hear no displeasure in her voice. Despite her fears, their children adore her, and she them. It makes his heart sing.

Their discussion is interrupted by the return of their youngest, who proudly hands her mother a flower, giggling as her father winks at her before racing off again.

‘She's seen you bring me flowers too many times,’ Victoria says softly, spinning the flower in her hand.

‘And she's seen what you do with those flowers,’ he replies, gently taking the pretty yellow flower and pushing it behind her ear. ‘If we’re not careful, we’ll have no flowers left by spring,’ he adds, and she laughs gently. 

The Duke hadn’t been completely right, he thinks. He had _tried_ to sacrifice everything for love. 

In his love, he’d sacrificed her.

He’d pushed her away, lied to her about his heart, and had eventually left her to the assistances of Sir Robert Peel. He’d refused her invitations, allied himself with her suitors, and eventually banished himself to Brockett Hall to save her from him – from herself. 

It had been the flowers. He hadn’t been able to sacrifice those, the memory of her with his flowers at her breast and in her hair had long sustained his heart – and they’d been his undoing. She was smart, his beautiful wife. She had eventually seen into his heart; she’d challenged him on his secret, worn him down. Caught him unguarded, late one evening. 

He had loved her all along. 

For so long, she could only see the lie, the wasted time, and he could only see his own weakness; his selfishness and his failure. But it had not taken long for her to make her arrangements, despite his protests.

It had all been worth it. The six months he’d spent hiding from her and the world, desperately praying she would move on and forget him and avoid all the pain that he believed – and still believes – he simply was not worth. The way his heart burned at the suitors that appeared repeatedly during those six months, each politely received and politely farewelled. 

Her announcement to the Privy Council that she would not marry if she could not marry for love that had almost destroyed him. 

The most selfish part of his heart knows he’d do it all again gladly, if this was the outcome; the scandal, the pain of unkind and embittered words, the fighting and wrangling and bartering and threatening she’d done to be able to have him, to claim him as hers. The tears he’d wiped away, the whispers and looks that had spoken of seductions and intrigues. The initial disgust of those who’d once held him in esteem. 

Now, he was grateful. Grateful for her fight, for her strength, for her love for him, for their beautiful children. For her smile and her laugh and the way her passion for life seemed to resurrect his own. For the way his life was worth living again, and _oh_ , was it worth living. 

He moves to stand behind her, and put his arms around her waist. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asks gently, his hands low on her now-obvious belly.

‘I abhor being with child,’ she announces, and he smiles. This, he knows well. He presses a kiss to the top of her head, and she leans back against him, and all is right with the world in that moment. ‘I feel well,’ she says quietly.

‘I’m glad,’ he replies. He knows how uncomfortable she is, how much she hates this. How quickly it could all fall apart.

‘I would, however, prefer this to be the last child,’ she adds, and he feels a smile tug at his lips.

‘There’s only one way to ensure that,’ he whispers lowly in her ear, and he feels her shudder. 

‘Then I suppose I will have to suffer,’ she replies, and he laughs out loud this time. 

Many believed he’d sacrificed much to be her Prince, but it wasn’t a sacrifice at all. He’d gained everything, everything he could possibly have ever dreamed at the same time, and he was grateful.

So, so grateful.

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently, there are many flowers that quite happily bloom in March in England. Who knew. 
> 
> This is my first foray into Victoria fanfiction. This fandom is really wonderful - small, but devoted and so friendly. 
> 
> I'm not entirely happy with how this turned out, but I am my own worst critic. Let me know what you think if you feel so inclined!
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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